Effect of Thermal-cured Hydraulic Cement Admixtures on the Mechanical Properties of Concrete

In the cement industry, researchers have worked on blending cement with supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs) to enhance the mechanical properties of concrete. For technical and environmental reasons, previous studies have recommended that concretes be designed with less ordinary Portland cement (OPC). Other researchers encourage the use of thermal treatments at the precast stage. In this work, high volumes of various SCMs other than OPC were used to prepare five cement formulations, including a control sample. Initial tests of three hydraulic binders were performed to check their suitability before mixing cement samples. The samples were treated in water, air, hot water, and hot air curing (HAC) conditions after demoulding. The study showed that a combination of rice husk ash (RHA) and fly ash (FA) with OPC in the binder matrix, cured under HAC conditions, gave the best compressive and flexural strength results with the lowest water absorption.